Ok, my home computer is deceased, so I have been away from a computer for my two days off. Let's see; where do I start.... Oh, and by the way:
To all of you who don't care to read this unforgivably long post. Well, I apologize for writing it, kind of.
QUOTE (Remjin @ Nov 4 2008, 03:56 PM)
In the age of the gun, fighting the old way is relatively less viable. Assuming a degree of authenticity, it is still done because it does still come up, it teaches you a lot about your body and conditions you to better respond under physical stress, and in certain climates is your only option as the tyrants continue to attempt to disarm us.
That's why I have a CCW. Careful, you might get me started on a "Pinko commies taking away my guns" rant.
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You'll find that 95%+ of people in martial arts schools have very little interest in actual skill so much as the pride/ego aspects and otherwise. As Tachi mentioned, a lot of it is directed at sport, and if that's your goal then there's nothing wrong with it so long as you don't fool yourself into thinking you're learning to fight.
Remember, any exercise is good exercise, though.
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I hate a lot of these modern martial people who say learning one style is stupid, so instead of being good at any one thing and then moving on to expand on what you've learned you have all these morons that just suck at a hodgepodge of techniques having mastered none but bludgeon their way through them all.
I've always been fond of the old Shaolin saying: I do not fear the ten-thousand kicks you have practiced once, I fear the one kick you have practiced ten-thousand times.
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Nov 4 2008, 05:43 PM)
Lots of people nowadays go on a Walter Mitty trip studying "reality based self defense" which has all the WWII and Vietnam era eye gouges, neck breaks, and what have you. However, most of these people are fat, insecure, and can't fight worth a damn. And they like to go on and on over the internet about how "BJJ/MMA/wrestling/whatever doesn't work in t3h str33t" because the asphalt is invariably blanketed with broken glass and HIV-infected needles. The one guy on the internet who goes on the most about Applegate/Fairbain stuff in self defense situations is also a fat insecure dude with a chronic fear of the homeless. (If you want hilarity, PM me and I can try and find some links to this macaroon's stuff for you.) If we look at the results of training I would say that in the United States today combat sports produce more people who have actual hand to hand ability than "reality based" programs.
Walter Mitty? People always knock that "Glass in the street line". I have scars and needed nearly a hundred stitches. You can talk smack about that all you want, but I've had the blood running down my back. I would never suggest not training for when you are on the ground. Instead, I would suggest training for it, but concentrating on GETTING UP. You're too vulnerable on the ground.
BJJ and MMA aren't completely useless. They are great for teaching children he basics and training people for exciting fights on TV, good exercise too.
I learned CQC by being constantly beaten and humiliated by a retired Delta force instructor. Eventually you learn, just to stop the pain. That's my idea of "reality based". In most sport combat styles many of the more effective and dangerous techniques have been removed entirely to prevent someone from getting hurt in a match or tournament. This isn't entirely true across the board, but in many it is. In most of those cases the only way they'll teach them to you is if you're a 'black belt'. The main difference I've noticed between the martial arts I took as a kid and the actually useful stuff I learned later was the attitude of the lessons and instructors. The martial arts people taught "respect, honor, discipline" etc. Whereas the DF instructor taught me "Kill, Kill, Kill". I have gotten a great deal more use out of the stuff from the Delta guy than the other three, combined.
Keep in mind, also, that you'll usually learn more from a great teacher of bad techniques than a bad teacher of the best techniques.
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Besides for eye gouges and testicle rips, a lot of the techniques in modern combative sports are very similar to the older "deadly" techniques found in traditional martial arts or old military combatives programs. Joints are more likely to break when you twist them certain ways or apply certain types of leverage, and an arm bar you see in a modern MMA competition isn't fundamentally different in terms of mechanics than a "combatives-style" attempt to break the elbow by forcing the arm with similar motions or with a strike as opposed to steady pressure so the other guy can tap out. The fallacy is to assume that someone who practices an arm bar frequently in a sport setting is magically incapable of executing the arm bar with more force and violence if his life is on the line to attempt an immediate arm break, whereas someone who learned some combatives elbow break will magically always be able to do so under stress. It's also fallacious to think that because MMA matches tend to go on for a long time that a MMA-trained grappler could not apply his submission/joint destruction techniques quickly, especially against a less skilled opponent. If you've ever grappled with someone who doesn't know how to defend against submissions, BAM, you can get the techniques on them almost immediately.
As far as eye gouges and testicle rips go, isn't it a clear logical fallacy to think that someone who is sport or MMA trained magically can't decide to use them in a life-and-death situation, whereas someone who went through 1950s commando hand to hand combat training will automatically succeed with his eye gouges and testicle rips whenever he attempts them against a fit, skilled, fully aggressive opponent? Wouldn't it be easier to get into the position to pluck out someone's eyes or crush his genitalia if you had a high degree of athleticism than if you were weak, or if you had a broad body of supplemental skills and techniques besides for just the "t00 d34dly f0r t3h r1ng buy my self-defense video because it has eye gouges" stuff?
I'd also point out the advantages of "alive" training in any kind of martial arts activity. If you practice on a regular basis against competent, athletic, fully-resisting opponents you will be better at making your techniques actually happen than if the only thing you do is contemplate ball crushing all day and maybe do it in the air a little bit.
Almost 10 years ago now, I trained in classical jujitsu with an instructor who was ex-military. He taught spinal destruction, some old military HTH techniques, limb breaking, etc, all the "reality" stuff. He was a skilled, tough individual in phenominal shape and really was influential in my life. Be that as it may, I absolutely sucked at fighting back then compared to today, when I've spent the intervening years engaged in various combative sports such as judo and kickboxing. This is because even though my head was filled with all sorts of nasty techniques, I hadn't had enough practice against fully resisting opponents to be able to make them work against people who knew what they were doing. The first time I experimented with grappling against a BJJ player none of my techniques worked because the BJJer could always get out of them whereas I could not escape any of his techniques because he was too good at applying them to a resisting opponent. If I got into a fight with a version of me from 10 years ago who was less athletic and whose head was filled with all the "deadly" stuff, I'd totally be able to destroy the old version of myself using all "sport" techniques because my overall level of skill in actually making the techniques work is a lot higher now. Remember, the only difference between a shoulder lock submission and a traditional shoulder breaking technique is how quickly and violently you crank the arm. The only difference between a neck crank submission and an attempt at a combatives-style neck breaker is intent, and slight variations in the directions you try to force the head and neck.
Yes, that's right, the techniques are 'similar', not the same, sport techniques concentrate on "I'm gonna press your elbow until you give up" which is different than "I'm gonna destroy your arm and move on to the next limb". Or, "I'm gonna knock you out" versus "I'm gonna KILL YOU!" Yes. someone who trains for one may be able to do both, but that's not necessarily true all the time, in my experience, the difference is usually in the attitude. The one you train for will be the one you to automatically fall back on in a real fight. Which is why the best are always saying "train how you fight", be they talking about H-2-H, firearms practice, playing football, whatever.... If you train for sport combat, and actually think about it as 'sport', that's what your really prepared yourself for, unless you have the mental attitude and preparedness to make the switch. Most sport combat schools don't teach that these days. Keep in mind, a person can train to kill with sport combat.
As I said before, my main gripe is the attitude difference between the two, and the difference in how the fighter will approach the encounter that will cause. And, keep in mind that, obviously, someone who has practiced ANY technique for 10 years is going to have an advantage over the guy who only (as you call it) "contemplate ball crushing all day and maybe do it in the air a little bit," which makes you're argument a kind of fallacy itself, as you keep comparing the "video taught" couch potaoes to those of us with live training. It's when you have serious people who actually train hard that the difference between the attitudes they are taught during training really comes to the forefront.
I don't see that we really disagree on fundamentals, and, what we do disagree on seems to be what everyone argues about. Somehow, given the number of years this debate has gone on, I doubt that either you or I are going to give the definitive argument that ends all debate.
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BJJ =/= MMA.
Your right. I should have clarified my position a little better. I was referring to sport combat in general and should have said so directly.
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I could just as readily point you to some military people who think Applegate, SCARS, LINE, etc is garbage, and who would emphasize the importance of "alive" training as discussed above. I'm not even joking or being snarky...I mean that in a totally neutral, serious, and statement-of-fact way.
I'm well aware of them. The problem is the BS about CQC told to people on the videos you so despise. It is not any more possible to 'learn' CQC in "just a few minutes a day" than it is possible to learn particle physics that way. Meaning, it is possible, but it'll take ten times as long and, like you said, you'll never be as good as someone who has had another person to resist the techniques.
When the military trains soldiers they rarely concentrate on unarmed combat for more that a few hours during the entirety of training these days. In the days of WWII the raw material they had to work with was usually already more aware of how to defend themselves than many people today. They had usually already mastered the basics of timing and distance just as a necessity of survival. That's not as true today according to many of the military people I know. According to them, that's why they've switched to a "few basic techniques anyone can learn". Though, given the extremely short amount of time they concentrate on unarmed combat I'm not really sure it makes much difference.
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Knives are a whole other ball of wax, because competent use of a knife is superior to hand to hand combat. If you want to say that using a knife in a competent way is superior to any empty-hand martial art or combative sport of your choice you would be correct. But that's an entirely seperate issue whether fantasizing about eye gouges and groin ripping all day makes you a better fighter than actually sparring a lot.
The DF instructor that taught me always said the the only real difference between unarmed melee combat and armed melee combat is: whether the weapon your attacking has a pulse or not, and the amount of damage you'll receive if you make a mistake. I was mostly referring to the fact that I prefer to lead the encounter with an attitude of "peace through superior firepower". But, yeah, I know what you mean.
QUOTE ( @ Nov 4 2008, 08:55 PM)
Odds are, you'll never have to *really* fight an expert in your life; and nowadays, it's possible to go through your entire life without ever being in a single fight. For those that do, it's more likely to be some drunken idiot in a bar than a fight to the death against a ninja master. Training to handle a drunk in a bar, and run away from anything else, is far safer and more practical than trying to slug it out against an army of McNinja's.
Agreed. There is nothing wrong with knocking someone down, then running like hell.
Crush it, break it, rip it, disable it, remove it, poke it, cut it, shoot it, slash it, stab it, and run. Do the fewest possible to win then always go for the run. (they always have friends) Its what they're trying to do to you, so do it smarter, faster, or better and get the hell out of there. Let the jerks bounce around and play at fighting, I like my life and would like to resume it as quickly as possible. 
Most of the time, colored belts are used nowadays as a way of getting another lump sum payment for continuing to keep a person in class.
Ninjas would be fun, though... or maybe pirates... can we start that discussion? =) I think I should apologize here, I think I sort of added to the testosterone bit.